Dark
by Frodo Silverlune
Summary: Captured and tormented by the orcs in the Tower of Cirith Ungol, Frodo begins to despair.


**Dark  
**

by FrodoBaggins87

Disclaimer: I do not own Lord of the Rings, nor do I claim to. _I did borrow some passages in here from 'The Return of the King' by J. R. R. Tolkien, and they are marked with, eh, a bold T. (because asterisks don't work anymore with this formatting.)_

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Dark. Voices. Nasty, snarling, sneering voices. Or was it voices? There! A throaty croak, and there! A high-pitched whinny. No, no, it was voices, and they were getting louder with each passing second, blossoming and pulsing until they became a reverberating tangible pain in his ears. A pain that spread to the back of his neck. Instinctively he attempted to raise his hands and explore what was hurting him, but a stiff weight was dragging at his wrists, making them uncommonly heavy to move. Stiff irritation pierced his watery emotions, and he groaned in frustration, despite of a terrible burning, bitter taste in his mouth. Instantly the voices stopped.  
  
Frodo was fully awake by now, and the stifling cold in the room flowed through his clothes, the icy breath of imminent danger. Footsteps, heavy, eager footsteps rumbled the floor up to his very face, and despite himself, he cracked his rusty eyelids open.  
  
"Well, lookee 'ere, et finally woke up." Harsh chuckles, cruel chuckles.  
  
Iron-shod feet were planted inches away from Frodo's face; he could count the rusty nails spaced unevenly apart bordering the sole. Was he awake? Or was this only another dream?  
  
"Ah, get about yer business Flabjag, we haven't got all day." The high- pitched commanding voice tore through his sensitive ears.  
  
"Eh, but et jus' woke up! I wanna 'ave some fun first." Pleading, whinning.  
  
"It's only awake because you woke him up, stupid. Now put that stuff away and get about your business."  
  
Frodo slowly raised his eyes, up the greasy leather hangings, broken chain mail, stiff leather and iron armor just in time to lock eyes with the hideous face of Flabjag the orc. The twisted, cracked lips split into the imitation of a smile.  
  
"'e knows me!" He said, squatting down to prod the captive with a short club clenched in his massive hand. Before he touched him, however, he was sent tumbling backwards by a blow from his cheiftain.  
  
"Get away from it!" The orc officer bellowed, then turned his snarling, pointed face towards Frodo in a careless glance. "Strip him," he commanded over his shoulder to two other orcs standing ready beside him.  
  
_'No, they can't mean...'_ Frodo thought in horror, thinking of what they might discover. He began scooting backwards, away from the two advancing orcs, and ran solidly into a wall. Their hands descended, and as his dignity was stripped away from him, he cast a silent apology, tears threatening to leak from his eyes. 'I'm sorry, Aragorn, I have failed.'  
  
They must have killed Sam. His loyal friend would never let his master be captured. He mourned for Sam, his body laying in a pool of blood somewhere on the mountain behind him.  
  
The orcs retreated with their spoils, and the chieftain bent over the shivering captive, glaring at him with two yellow, slitted eyes.  
  
"Do you see this?" He held up an ugly leather whip. "I want answers, and if you don't give 'em, here's a taste of what you'll get." He swung the whip above his head and cracked it across Frodo's bare side. The shock and stinging fire loosed his tounge, and against his will he cried out in pain. The room vibrated with roaring laughter, and he felt his eyes sting with shame.  
  
"Now," the chieftain smiled, fingering his knife, "What are you? Elf? Man? Dwarf? What is your name? Is it Baggins? Why were you creeping up the mountain? Are you a spy? Answer me!"  
  
The orcs suddenly found themselves confronted with the infamous Baggins stubbornness, for Frodo's mind, although frozen in horror, found in itself an iron bar of resolution. He would not reveal anything, though they killed him for it. He would not betray his friends, and perhaps they could escape a worse fate for it.  
  
The chieftain slashed at Frodo again with the whip, but this time he did not cry out.  
  
"Are you going to answer, maggot?" Swish, crack! Pain. His lips remained sealed.  
  
Swish, crack! Four. Swish, crack! Five. Swish, crack! Six.  
  
Fire raced up and down his back and side, and he found himself wishing over and over to go home. The whip stopped, and he found claws digging into his sides, dragging him up and flopping him stomach-down over a barrel.  
  
"Now, dung-hill rat, you've had a taste of my whip, do you want some more? Answer my questions! Who are you? Who sent you?" Thud! Something hard and blunt hit him squarely between the shoulders. Sweat was trickling down his forehead. Sam. Where was Sam?  
  
"You aren't going to speak, then? Very well, you've had your chance. Anytime you open your dumb mouth, rat, we'll stop."  
  
Crack! Crack! Swish, snap. Like clockwork, so rhythmical. There were four stones in the floor in front of his face, and two more on the top, three on one side, two and a half on another...snAP! Pain, fire. Fire leeking across his forehead and dripping onto the stones from the ends of his hair. If only he could wipe his hair from his eyes. A bead of sweat was hanging on the end of his nose, and it irritated him. Or was it blood? Surely his back must be a nest of red stripes now.  
  
Finally the torrent of slashes stopped.  
  
"You're a irritating little rat," the orc growled in Frodo's ear, and grasped him by the shoulder, hauling him off the barrel, "So I think I'll give you....the Pole!"

The company of orcs gathered in the room broke into peals of harsh laughter, and from nowhere a long pole was thrust into his face. He shut his eyes tight against whatever new evil they had derived for him.

Frodo's wrists were bound tightly and the opposite end of the rope was tied securely to the end of the pole. The orcs began prodding him until he was forced to back up against the window sill.

"Up ye go!" the cheiftain taunted, and Frodo scrambled onto the narrow ledge. His eyes were burning with the humiliation of being on display in front of his tormentors, unclothed as he was. But that was quickly forgotten when he caught sight of his dizzying height and the terrifying drop below him.

He had only a glimpse of the ramshackle buildings and filthy courtyards far, far below before he was suddenly shoved out into the open air. HIs heart leapt into his throat as he plunged downwards. The wind whistled through his hair and he felt the sweat from his body being streaked away, when suddenly a savage jerk sliced through his wrists and shoulders, and he swayed sullenly back and forth in space, suspended only by the biting ropes around his wrists that were tied to the pole, now snaking out of the window to dangle him for all the world to see, naked, humiliated and bloodied.

No tears clouded his eyes at the raucous laughter of the orcs watching from the tower window. He made no reply to the vicious taunts as stones and bits of rusted armour were flung at his tiny twisting target. His shoulders ached and his wrists burned, but he was too far away to pay them heed.

The mountains of Mordor loomed black and forbidding to his left, and across the plain of Gorgoroth, studded and sprinkled with countless yellow camp fires, was Mount Doom, the accursed mountain of fire, so tantilizingly close, yet so incredibly far. He would never make it there, to the gullied slopes and ash-clouded summit. No, he would die at the hands of the orcs, and Middle Earth would fall.

"Get yer hands off that pretty shirt, it goes to the tower!"  
  
"No, I found it, it's mine!"  
  
"Oh, is it? Ye dare disobey orders?"

The rope jerked and he was hurled roughly against the tower. Yet even the rough rocks were a blessed thing to have scraping against his skin as he was pulled upwards, rather than empty space. A rough glove flung his bound hands into the window and across the room onto the floor amongst a pile of rags. A boot contacted with his mid-section, and for a moment he gasped for air, winded.

A long screech and a howl, sounds of a scuffle.

The immediate noise in the room died away as the orcs left the room through the floor. The trap door slammed shut, and he was left alone with nothing but pain and the dark.  
  
How long he laid there in the red dark, the fire raging across his back, shoulders throbbing, listening to the sounds of armor ringing and harsh shouting below, he never knew. He only hoped the orcs would kill themselves off and he could escape before he was tortured more and left to die in the dungeons of the Dark Tower. For surely the world was going to end. The orcs had the ring, and sooner or later it would find it's way to the hand of the Dark Lord, and the world would plunge into night.  
  
The quest had failed, but he had known it would from the beginning. It was only a matter of time. Only the elves could escape over the sea, if the darkness didn't spread that far.  
  
All had become quiet below, and he lay with his eyes shut, listening to the darkness. Far off in the distance, the Mountain of Fire rumbled, his destination failed. Wait, what was that?  
  
He opened his eyes and stared at the trap door. He thought he had heard someone singing. It hadn't been an orc, the voice was too clear and familiar for that. Perhaps is had been a dream. The song stopped, but not the ray of hope that suddenly pierced his heart. Perhaps there was a way out of the darkness of this world. He opened his mouth and began to sing.  
  
_'Though here at journey's end I lie in darkness buried deep, beyond all towers strong and high, beyond all mountains steep, above all shadows rides the Sun and Stars forever dwell: I will not say the Day is done, Nor bid the Stars farewell.'_ T  
  
Footsteps raged in the passage below and a snarling orc-voice cried out.  
  
"Ho, la! You up there, dunghill rat! Stop your squeaking, or I'll come and deal with you, D'you hear?" T  
  
Frodo glowered at the voice, but gave the orc no pleasure of an answer. He found himself strangely defiant, spurred on by a new hope. The song was true, no matter how dark and penetrating the shadow, above all still dwells the light; the darkness can never cover the brightness and Glory of the Sun.  
  
"All right, but I'll come and have a look at you all the same, and see what you're up to." T  
  
The trap door was opened and the chieftain's hideous head poked into the chamber.  
  
"You lie quiet, or you'll pay for it!" T he said, clambering up into the room. "You've not got long to live in peace, I guess; but if you don't want the fun to begin right now, keep your trap shut, see? There's a reminder for you!" T Swish, crack!  
  
Frodo turned on his side, raised his arms to shield his head and squeezed his eyes shut, expecting more pain. The orc was standing over him, straddling his bloodied form. He heard the familiar sound of the whip being raised a second time, but the blow never fell.  
  
A metallic ring and a howl of rage, a scuffle, a thud. Soft footsteps approaching. A gasp.  
  
"Frodo! Mr. Frodo, my dear! It's Sam, I've come!" T He felt himself being enfolded in a warm embrace, and he opened his eyes. It couldn't be.  
  
"Am I still dreaming?" he muttered. "But the other dreams were so horrible." T  
  
"You're not dreaming at all, Master. It's real. It's me. I've come." T  
  
Frodo gazed in awe at the weeping figure above him.  
  
"Sam."  
  
_'Above all shadows rides the sun, and Stars forever dwell: I will not say the Day is done, nor bid the Stars farewell.'_ T  
  
**The End**

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sorry about all the 'T's'. like i said before, they mark passages borrowed from 'The Return of the King' by J.R.R. Tolkien.


End file.
